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The Stories Alexander McCall Smith Reads to His Grandchildren

by the Brightly Editors

Reading an Alexander McCall Smith book is like meeting a good friend for tea: welcoming, insightful, engaging, and likely to be filled with plenty of witticisms and great stories. With two new books coming out in as many months — The Bertie Projectand My Italian Bulldozer — fans will be happy to hear McCall Smith is keeping the pace as quick as ever. Curious what tales this master storyteller enjoys in his downtime, we asked him to share a shortlist of family favorites. Here are the books Alexander McCall Smith enjoys reading with his grandchildren.

McCall Smith loves these twelve magical tales in which Kipling provides inventive, imaginative answers to questions such as how the camel got his hump, how the leopard got his spots, and how the alphabet was made.

“And of course the Babar books by Jean and Laurent de Brunhoff. The story of Babar is one of the great children’s classics. I shall leave out the scene where Babar’s mother is shot by a cruel hunter — the rest will remain.”